The 1956 New Zealand Maori team was ordered by a government minister to throw a game against the Springboks to ensure the All Blacks weren't stopped from touring South Africa, a former player has claimed.

Muru Walters - the full-back in the 1956 Maori team - said before playing South Africa in Auckland, Maori Affairs Minister Ernest Corbett told them they must not beat the apartheid era Springboks "for the future of rugby".

The dressing room message from Corbett, who died in 1968, "ripped the guts out of the spirits of our team" and the indigenous Maori side went on to lose 37-0.

"What he said was you must not win this game or we will never be invited to South Africa again," said Walters, who is now an Anglican bishop.

"I thought he was joking, but then another official came in and said the same thing... for the future of rugby, don't beat the South Africans," he said in a radio interview on Monday.

Maori players were excluded from All Black tours to white-controlled South Africa in 1928, 1949 and 1960.

Pressure has been building for the New Zealand Rugby Union to apologise to Maori players for bowing to South African demands for their exclusion from teams touring there.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples recently accused the rugby union of "gross arrogance" for failing to apologise in the centenary year of Maori rugby.

But Walters said the New Zealand government should also apologise for accepting the exclusion of Maori players in the past.

Rugby union Maori board chairman Wayne Peters said the union had decided it was better in the centenary year to focus on celebrations rather than past political issues.